ABSTRACT
Chapter 6 The joker never dies: the world “as if “ documents a trip to Krakow, Poland, where the author attended the International Society of Humor Studies conference in 2012. The text takes the form of a braided essay in which seemingly disparate endeavors and voices (“threads”) are woven into a montage-like whole. Here Schutzman enacts a style of meaning making that the Joker System itself enacts, one that creates a totality without easy synthesis. Written years after the trip, this personal essay is a reflection on death, Jewish identity, active witnessing, caricatures, struggle, and “happiness” – more precisely, Boal’s mantra, “have the courage to be happy.” The chapter features, among others, the schlemiel, or the “fool” of Jewish culture and literature, who embraces comedic irony as both truth and weapon, as a way to both describe and change how things work. According to schlemiel logic – as well as Henri Bergson and Emmanuel Levinas, whose ideas pervade this chapter – the self survives only by shifting away from the deceptive comforts of “being” and entering into the risky and transitive state of “becoming.” With insights culled from excursions to Auschwitz-Birkenau and the birthplace of her grandfather, Schutzman exposes how this “becoming” occurs only when we, as individuals, accept responsibility for the Other.
